Suchergebnisse

steve evans is an assistant professor at the University of Maine, where he teaches avant-garde poetry and poetics, critical theory, and American women's literature. A former assistant editor ofdifferences, he at present coedits the journal Sagetrieb: Poetry and Poetics after Modernism with Benjamin Friedlander. Recent essays have appeared or are forthcoming in Poetics Journal, Aerial, and Qui Parle and in the collections The Mechanics of the Mirage: Postwar American Poetry and Telling It Slant: Avant-Garde Poetries of the 1990s.

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to examine a buyer's adoption of servitization and the associated implications for the relationships with its suppliers.Design/methodology/approachThe authors use the case study approach to examine the tripartite relationship between a manufacturing company and two of its two suppliers. The paper explores the perspectives of employees on multiple organisational levels, and collects evidence on both sides of a relationship. The authors use template analysis utilising Cannon and Perreault's relationship connectors framework to analyse the data.FindingsThere are overarching implications of servitization adoption for buyer‐supplier relationships. The implications are notable in all five relationship connectors. Parties expected more open exchange of information, operational linkages were strengthened and changes in the structural arrangements of relationships were witnessed. Legal contracts are complemented by relational norms. The authors also observed a departure away from a win‐lose mentality and increased levels of supplier adaptation to support the buyer's provision of integrated solutions.Research limitations/implicationsThe findings are confined to this tripartite relationship and to an extent are context specific.Practical implicationsThe study unveils buyer‐supplier relationships in a servitized context and provides managers with a better understanding of some of the potential implications that the adoption of a servitization strategy may have for managing buyer‐supplier relationships.Originality/valueThis is the first empirical study that explores the implications of servitization on buyer‐supplier relationships. It advances the understanding of the implications that the adoption of servitization has on the manner in which two parties interrelate and conduct commercial exchange.

PurposeCompanies are concerned about the well-being of workers in their supply chains, but conventional audits fail to uncover critical problems. Yet, if the happy worker – productive worker thesis is correct, it would benefit factories in fast-developing countries, particularly China which is key to many global supply chains, to ensure the well-being of their workers. The authors set out to better understand the relationship between well-being and performance in four Chinese factories.Design/methodology/approachOver 12-months the authors collected digital diaries from 466 workers in four factories, and monthly data about the performance of their factories. The authors used this data to gain insights into the well-being of workers in these factories; to design experimental interventions to improve this; and to consider any effects these had on factory performance.FindingsThe experiments showed that training interventions to improve workers' well-being through their work relationships and individual skills improved not just a factory's general worker well-being, but also some aspects of its performance and worker retention. Thus, it brought benefits not only for the workers but also for the factory owners and their client companies.Originality/valueWhile there is a significant body of research investigating the happy worker – productive worker thesis, this was not conducted in Chinese factories. The authors' work demonstrates that in this and similar environments, workers' eudaimonic well-being is more important than might be assumed, and that in this context there is a relationship between well-being and performance which can be practically addressed.